Cirrus@Austlit

'Abstract: Picture one: There are eight people sitting around a table on the top floor of a high-rise building in the heart of Adelaide's CBD. Four of us are from a humanities research project looking for new ways to account for the value of arts and culture to government and the community. Four are economists from the Department of State Development. We are having a laboured conversation about assessment indices for cultural institutions. It is bleak mid-winter in 2015, the worst possible day for us to be having this meeting. The end of mining at Leigh Creek has just been announced. The economists are looking at us with irritation. They talk about robotics, innovation labs, digital special-effects firms. They want to know what we have for them, how arts and culture are going to replace manufacturing and minerals in our stuck-for- an- answer post-industrial economy. They lean forward to hear what we have to say.' (Publication abstract)